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Vorarlberg votes: Where it will be particularly exciting

Bregenz mayor Michael Ritsch (SPÖ) and his wife Yvonne have a good laugh.

(Bild: APA/ELISABETH GUT)

The municipal elections in Vorarlberg are over. In the provincial capital of Bregenz, the SPÖ won a clear victory. The Red Party defended the office of mayor and took first place in the city council from the ÖVP. There will be run-off elections in Dornbirn, Feldkirch and Lustenau. The krone.at live ticker will guide you through the exciting election Sunday. 

Graphic: How the Vorarlberg municipalities voted

The most important facts in a nutshell:

• Michael Ritsch, red mayor in Bregenz, wins a clear election victory with 51%. The SPÖ achieves 43% in the city council
• The ÖVP has to vacate its mayoral seat in Schruns . However, it is able to defend the town of Bludenz and the municipality of Altach.
• In Lustenau, Patrick Wiedl (ÖVP) has to run against Martin Fitz (FPÖ). There is also an ÖVP-FPÖ duel in Feldkirch. And in Dornbirn, the ÖVP and SPÖ will be battling it out for the mayor's seat in a fortnight's time.

• In the posh ski resort of Lech am Arlberg, the "Liste Lech" with Mayor Gerhard Lucian plummeted from 42 to 34 percent. The new list "Together for Tomorrow" came first with 38 percent.

• Fewer and fewer people in Vorarlberg are willing to take on responsibility at municipal level. "Strengthen the municipalities!" demands "Krone Vorarlberg" editor-in-chief Emanuel Walser in his commentary.

Ritsch remains mayor of Bregenz - ÖVP defeat
The political color of Vorarlberg's state capital Bregenz changed from black to red on Sunday. For the first time since 1995, the Social Democrats regained a majority in the Bregenz city council and Michael Ritsch remains mayor without having to go to a run-off election (which many experts expected).

The mayor of Bregenz, Michael Ritsch (SPÖ) and his wife Yvonne

(Bild: APA/ELISABETH GUT)

Ritsch clearly outperformed his challenger Roland Frühstück (ÖVP). While Ritsch received 5,478 votes (50.94 percent), Frühstück had to settle for 3,222 votes (29.96 percent). In the city council, the SPÖ achieved 42.70 percent (2020: 29.58), while the ÖVP lost over nine percentage points (30.14, 2020: 39.37). In an initial statement, Ritsch said that he could now "go full throttle for another five years".

FPÖ doubled in Bregenz
In the city council elections, the SPÖ increased from 29.58 to 42.70 percent or from 11 to 16 seats. The ÖVP lost more than nine percentage points and fell from 39.37 to 30.14 percent or from 15 to 11 seats. There were also losses for the Greens, who only achieved 10.99% of the vote this year (4 instead of 6 seats) after 16.61% in 2020. They were overtaken by the FPÖ (11.20%, 2020: 6.81), which doubled its number of seats to four. There was a slight loss for the NEOS, which fell from 5.65% to 4.97% (1 instead of 2 seats).

ÖVP defends Bludenz
There were also surprises in other municipalities. In Bludenz - where a run-off election was also widely expected - Mayor Simon Tschann (ÖVP) kept SPÖ provincial party leader Mario Leiter at arm's length and also remains head of the town without a run-off election.

In Bludenz, Simon Tschann (ÖVP) remains mayor

(Bild: APA/BERND HOFMEISTER)

Run-off elections in Lustenau, Feldkirch and Dornbirn
However, there will be a run-off election in the towns of Feldkirch and Dornbirn and in Austria's largest market town of Lustenau. There will also be run-off elections in the municipalities of Götzis and Nenzing in 14 days' time.

In Dornbirn, the run-off is between Julian Fässler (ÖVP) and Markus Fäßler (SPÖ), in Götzis (Feldkirch district) Manfred Böhmwalder and Christoph Längle. Böhmwalder is the mayor and is running for the ÖVP, while Längle is a former FPÖ politician who sat on the Federal Council from 2014 to 2019 and founded the "Götzis Citizens' Movement" in 2020. FPÖ candidate Andrea Buri-Mayer did not make it into the run-off.